[OT] American versus British spelling and pronunciation (was:Arbitrary abbreviations in phobos considered ridiculous)

[Nick Sabalausky]

"James Miller" <james at aatch.net> wrote in message 
news:mailman.235.1331210469.4860.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>On 9 March 2012 01:23, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm finding it hard to figure how someone would pronounce the "o" and "u" 
>> in
>> "colour" separately.
>>

I would imagine it'd be like "kuh-lore".

>Being British means that I do notice the differences in pronunciation,
>I've pretty much done the opposite to Reagan, gone from England to NZ.
>I tend to get frustrated when I can't even correct pronunciation
>because nobody can hear the difference!

I have a little extra insight into this as my mom is a speech/language 
pathologist:

As you've noticed, trying to get a person to hear the difference often 
doesn't work (And even if they can hear it, that doesn't necessarily give 
them enough info to actually pronounce it). I think the right thing to do, 
at least in cases where it actually matters, is to instruct them on the 
actual mouth movements involved. Then they can "feel" the difference, and 
start to hear themselves making the different sound. "Hearing" it can 
naturally follow from that.

When I started (trying to) learn Japanese, I had trouble hearing the 
Japanese "R" sound. But the instructor explained how to pronounce it: Pay 
attention to how your tongue is positioned when saying the English "R" and 
"L". For the Japanese "R", do the same thing, but put your tongue about 
half-way in-between: just in front of what's called the "boney ridge" 
instead of just behind it (English "R") or on the back of the teeth (English 
"L"). After learning that, I was able to not only pronounce it (more or 
less) but also hear the difference much better since I actually knew what to 
expect (interestingly, the Japanese "R" frequently sounds more like a "D" 
than an English "L" or "R").

A similar thing is the "tsu" sound in Japanese. The "TS" combination is very 
intimidating for most English speakers, and I doubt many English speakers 
can easily hear it. But as my class's instructor pointed out: It's exactly 
like the "ts" at the end of "boots". So just say that and folow up with a 
"u". Now I can say and hear it just fine (At least, I *think* I can - a 
native Japanese speaker would have to be the real judge).